Humans and Their Little Plastic Bubbles
Photograph by Mariel Wiley
I have this recurring dream. I’m working as a lawyer in a big city, and I have this beautiful, extravagant life. I see flashes of expensive cocktails decorated with herbs at downtown bars with low-lighting and a tasting menu. I eat as much overpriced sushi as I want, and wear silky evening dresses that make me look delicate and rich. I laugh; I drink, and a man that could be my husband wears a heavy silver watch and a suit that fits him perfectly.
Then I head over to my law firm, but I am running late. When I get to my office, the sun is setting. I was supposed to get there in the morning. It is somehow 7 p.m. when it is supposed to be 7 a.m. I must have gotten the night confused with the morning. How did I let that happen? I should be better at looking at my calendar.
My office is filled with windows. I can’t escape the glow of the sunset, but I try. I try to fix my mistake — of being late, and of leaving my work incomplete. I ignore the oranges and pinks that bathe the walls of my workplace. I try to type, but I can’t focus. The letters jumble. I become weathered with stress, and my skin grows wrinkly. I am 25, then 105.
My expensive suit is losing its shine. My stomach hurts from the cocktails. My office is now purple and hot pink. I am irritated that the sky is making me lose my focus. If the sun wasn't setting, I could get this work done, and it would be okay. But the sun is setting and it is not okay. I am exhausted, and my body hurts. It’s all the sky’s fault! The stupid earth with it’s bright, stupid colours. They make me sick.
I want to look at the sky, and I also wish for it to go away.
Then, it is dark — finally dark. I am tired, but my work is done. I am happy my work is done. I still feel sick. I begin to cry, and I can’t stop. They’re ugly tears. I look at my dark office and wish for the sun to come back.
I say out loud, to everyone and no one: That was so beautiful, I can’t believe I missed it.
Then I wake up, panicking, the words still on my tongue. That was so beautiful, I can’t believe I missed it. So beautiful, I can’t believe I missed it. I go back to bed.
There’s a lot I can say about this.
First of all, it doesn’t surprise me. I’m in a class right now on human nature. Humans are, for the most part, very selfish creatures. We become addicted to the cycle of personal growth — in our careers, our schoolwork, our friendships, our workouts — until we can trick ourselves into believing that we are machines, and that our humanness is a weakness that we need to escape.
If we begin to believe that it is true, danger is imminent. Not only because our humanity is the most important thing about us, but also because we forget that the world is about more than productivity and deadlines. We forget that we are only a tiny speck on a big planet, and that in the grand scheme of things, our to-do list does not matter.
I try to teach myself this, but I worry that it’s too late.
For as long as I can remember, my own productivity has been the scale on which I measured my days: How many assignments did I complete? How many boxes did I check off my to-do list? How long did I workout for, how many steps did I take, how many friends did I see, how long was I awake?
How much, how long, how well. Not how happy, how present, how kind. I’m feeding into the values I was born into, addicted to perpetual growth.
Perhaps productivity is a distraction from our inability to sit in comfortable boredom. Maybe it’s because we know just sitting and doing absolutely nothing is labeled as lazy. Maybe there’s too much to think about, and too many problems that we can’t fix because they can’t fit into our color-coded schedules.
There’s an open slot from 3:00-4:35 p.m. in mine, and I don’t think climate change can be addressed in that amount of time. Besides, is that really going to affect me getting into law school? These problems are simply too big, and the day is too short. By that logic, it isn't efficient to tackle them. So, we simply ignore them, crossing the more manageable things off our lists and scroll until we can’t remember the things we were trying to forget. Our goal has been achieved.
We live in our little plastic bubbles, so wrapped up in our goals and independent problems that we forget that there is a world outside of ourselves — that people are dying because they don’t have food and shelter. Meanwhile, we’re throwing overpriced cocktails down our throats until we can barely walk.
I don’t have a solution for this. Society feeds into these various ill mindsets until they are no longer considered problematic. They become the norm. We are all ego freaks in a society that praises ego freaks. We’re so wrapped up in creating the best, most productive version of ourselves that we become blind to the reality of the world. Then, we’re told that this is what we’re supposed to do! Work as hard as you can. Push yourself until you can’t push yourself anymore and, even then, it's not enough. Light yourself on fire, burn yourself out.
It’s no wonder that we aren’t making any progress on the big issues occurring in society. We can’t address poverty or climate change. Don’t they know that we have essays to write, schools to get into, LSATs to ace?
Until we take a step out of the carefully constructed bubbles that separate us from the real world, we’re not fixing anything worth fixing. We care too much about all the wrong things. We’re sick people in a world that tries to tell us that we are healthy.
I don’t want to be the fever dream version of myself who wears beautiful dresses and buys expensive things, but is so wrapped up in the world she created for herself that it makes her sick to ignore the day turn to night. I don’t want to care too much about every wrong thing. I’ll always keep three minutes to watch the sun go down. ♦